Communities and Sport for Change funding from Comic Relief

Sport (and physical activity) continues to play an important role in improving the lives of millions of people across the world. It brings people together to play, learn, improve health and benefit from shared experiences. It is also a powerful tool for helping bring about social change. That’s why we’re launching a second round of the Communities and Sport for Change initiative.

Our Sport for Change strategy runs across our UK and International funding, while focusing on our four key themes. Within this initiative, we are seeking proposals which use sport (physical activity) as a catalyst for change, helping people do two key things:

take ownership – feel part of increasingly inclusive and cohesive communities

feel empowered – to identify and solve the social issues affecting their communities

Funding available

We expect to make between 10 and 20 grants across the UK in this phase of the initiative.

We’ll want groups to think about what is not working in their community and how sport can be used as part of a solution to address the issues. Typical problems might be anti-social behaviour and older people feeling isolated or a lack of community cohesion.

We’ll be looking for projects which:

come from organisations that have developed within the community to meet local needs

involve ideas that are generated within the community

can provide evidence of need that has been gathered locally within the past 12 months

address a specific problem or social need

involve the community throughout

use sport and physical activity as an agent to make the change – not just increase participation

The work can target any age group, as long as there is a clear issue that needs addressing. It does not have to focus on young people.

Eligibility

Proposals are welcome for grants between £40,000 and £75,000 for up to two years of activity. All proposals must take place in one of the areas given below. We will not consider proposals from organisations that have an annual turnover of more than £1.5 million or from national organisations with no local presence in the communities where the work will be delivered.

We are inviting proposals for work in several of the UK’s most deprived areas:

England – Kingston Upon Hull, Birmingham, Nottingham, Plymouth, Great Yarmouth
Scotland – Glasgow, North LanarkshireNorthern Ireland – Derry
Wales – Blaenau Gwent and Denbighshire
Please also check our grant making policies, which explain our eligibility criteria for all organisations applying to Comic Relief for funding. In relation to costs the grant may cover, we will consider funding part of the refurbishment of facilities, if this work is core to the project activities and does not exceed 25% of total budget. Where refurbishment is taking place, we will need a clear plan for how the facility will be maintained once grant funding is finished.

Key dates and process

We will be open for proposals from the 13th March until the 24th April 2017 at midday.

Once we receive your proposal, we’ll initially check whether your organisation and proposal is eligible for funding under this initiative and then shortlist the strongest proposals to go through for a full assessment. We will aim to notify all applicants of our decisions in May 2017. If your proposal is unsuccessful at this stage, we will unfortunately be unable to provide any additional feedback due to our limited resources.

Assessments on the proposals which pass this stage will take place during June and July 2017 and final decisions will then be made by our Grants Committee and Trustees. We will inform applicants of our decision here in October 2017.

If your proposal is unsuccessful at this stage we will write you explaining the reasons why it was not successful.FURTHER INFORMATION HERE